Part 2

Fanart aside, let's start the actual game!


Our hero enters a shop. Hey, actual houses with roofs! LOOK AT THOSE GRAPHICS!


Wow, Tia? We're already being introduced to new characters!


Yeah, I named him Maxim. Which is apparently pronounced Maxeeeeeem. Anyway, Maxim will be played by like all of my heroes, and Tia will be played by Why? you might ask. You'll find out later.

Alright I viciously murdered six jellies today.

Let's see. . . that comes to 120 gold pieces, yes?

Whoa, six jellies is 180.

Look, the price of monsters has gone down. The city is suffering, so I can't pay top price.

Yeah, there are more monsters every day.

It's spooky

Well, it's good for me though, I'm a monster hunter, and that just means more things to stab.



What is this "ordinary" job you speak of?

You know. . . like. . . a shop keeper. . .

Me? A shop owner? HAHAHA! Who the hell would want to do that anyway?


This game even has though bubbles! High tech!

Did you say something?

Nothing! Here's your money!


She's pissed at me and ran to the back room, but she'll still sell me stuff.


Wow, the item list is organized! This is insanity! Note that you can buy attack items. They're even less useful than they were in Lufia I!


Not only can you see how the buyable equipment stacks up against what you already have, you can EQUIP IT RIGHT THERE IN THE SHOP! How amazing!


Look at this menu, it's so ORGANIZED!


and you can SORT your item list

This game is INCREDIBLE! Let's go explore the town so we can bask in the glory some more!


Oh little green haired girl, when you grow up you'll realize it's BECAUSE she likes me.


Yeah, this guy will help me out, sooner than you think.


Free inn


Ah, an RPG cliche! Although, to be fair, when they used it in Lufia I it was somewhat of a fresh idea. "It's been peaceful for years but lately there are more monsters than before, what gives?" When it starts showing up in PS2 games, such as oh Legaia 2, then you realize the horse has been dead for about a decade.


Hey a MAGIC shop!


Complete with magic balls! Haha balls


That's a little too expensive for me now, but I'll buy at least Strong before the first dungeon. Note that Maxim can't learn spark, because he doesn't learn attack magic.


Hey a church! A REAL church, not a priest hut or whatever they call it in the first game.


Aw, in the Japanese version the priest's hat has a cross on it, and the obelisk behind him is also a cross. Stupid Americans. I mean, hell, Xenogears was released here and you fucking kill God in that game!


Haha oh kids and their stories. What a silly imaginative little kid!


Man that was fast.

I'll meet you in the cave to the south!

Okay old dude, I will meet you.

This is a more realistic world map, I think, except that I am GIGANTIC compared to everything.



First you must learn about monsters' movement. Monsters only move when you do! So if you stand still, so will they.


Oh sweet my first battle I'm all geared up and ready to go!


As you can see, there's a pre-fight screen every turn and. . . hey wait I'm on level two, I guess this isn't my first battle. Let me think back. . .


Oh that's right, I gained a level fighting outside the town. Actually, there are no battles on the piece of land the town is on, you have to cross a bridge just north of it to fight stuff. Geez I only fought like three battles, okay! Back to the battle screen, here you can check your team's status, run, or change position. The back and front rows actually matter in this game, so you can do that.


As you can see, this is set up exactly like Lufia I, but run is replaced with IP skills. I have none right now, so I can't demonstrate yet. Anyway, you choose your attacks (you can actually pick who you attack now, it isn't just random!) or magic or whatever. Did I mention you can multi-target any spell? You can actually select specific targets, so instead of just attacking one enemy or all enemies, you can attack any number, so say two enemies are weak against fire but the others aren't, you can just select those two to use a fire spell on. HOW HANDY! And you can just select all enemies with R if you want.


Bitches ain't shit.

But don't get cocky! Some monsters are fast, getting two steps in for your one. Also, don't let monsters surround you! And drink your milk and eat your vegetables!

Yes grandpa. . .


OH BOY I GET TO SHOW OFF MY MAD SKILLZ!

Press select to cause the skill ring to come up, right now you just have arrows which can stun enemies if shot with them! Stunned enemies can't move and won't fight you if you walk next to them. You cannot run out of skills, so you can go around shooting off whenever you want!

Shit yeah, I'm going to shoot this jelly with an arrow!


This is my only skill for now, but I'll eventually get more awesome ones. What will I get? Geez spoilers!


PEW PEW! I just did this to demonstrate. I killed the fucking thing anyway.


Bridges? Switches? I wonder if this game is heavily influenced by the 2-D Zelda games hmm. . .

Oh wait we can't hit that switch, guess we can't go on. HAHA JUST KIDDING! SHOOT THE FUCKING SWITCH WITH A GODDAMN ARROW!


PEW PEW! The arrow hits the switch, switching it, and then it bounces off, which is why it looks like it hasn't hit yet. Wow, arrows are useful!



Go step on that switch, it should open the door.


DOOR OPEN (is that like a catchphrase? Someone explain it to me)


Oh, it's one of THOSE switches

The door opened, but you have to put something on the switch! There's a pillar there, push it onto the switch by holding A and shit.


Wow, pushing blocks onto switches. . . this is almost a rip off of Zelda, excpet I fight battles. Okay it isn't THAT much like zelda, but there are a lot of obviously Zelda-influenced things.



Take this spell, Reset. In case you fuck up a puzzle, since you can PUSH pillars but cannot PULL them, just cast this FREE spell and it'll reset the room. You can even reset the monsters in a room and fight them over and over, but seriously who does that?


Yeah, I can also access this spell quickly from my skill ring by pressing up or down.


I can have super fun time jumping off of cliffs, AWESOME!


Yeah, and of course, the classic "kill all the monsters in a room to open the door."


DAMN LIZARDS! They were newts in the first game.



sometimes switches are hidden under grass! Can you find the completely inconspicuous switch in this room?


Did I mention that using a skill/swinging your sword counts as a step? So when you swing your sword, monsters can move.


Oh wow who was expecting that?!


You also lift pots and put them on switches. MAN THIS IS SO INNOVATIVE!

You can also turn in place without moving by holding R! Try it out!


I can lift this pot. . .


And turn around without taking a step! This is useful if you're in a tight space where you actually can't take any steps.


Thanks pops! It's not like I haven't played through this game at least five times before, but a refresher course is always useful. Let's go back and check on Tia.



I'd love to.

I made something special! It's fish pot pie made from 'navaroa,' the phantom fish!


I wanted to make sure you guys got to see a shot of what the fish looks like. I don't think that's a pot pie, but. . .

I know, I haven't seen it before either! I wonder what it tastes like? Let's dig in!

Let's see. . . hmm. . .

How is it?

Well. . . it's. . . you see. . . I mean. . . why don't you try some?

Okay well. . . this is. . . pretty terrible, that's what it is.

You think so too? I don't think it's yoru cooking, I think it's the fish. (man, he's way nicer than Mixam)

Why is it called the phantom fish then?

Because it tastes to bad, no one eats it. Something like that.

Aww I'm disapointed, I wanted to cook something tasty for you!

Well maybe if you cover it with lemon it'll be okay. See? It's tasting better already.

Well, I think you're right, how odd. I guess that is why they call it the phantom fish.

Well, at least it brought us some cheer this evening! Ha, ha, ha.

I guess. Let's have our tea.

Yay tea!

Hey Maxim? Why are you always in battle?

Why do you ask all of a sudden?

You're the only one fighting monsters. Not many people fight to live. Why?

I've been fighting since I can remember. I never ask myself why I spend all day slaughtering defenseless jellies and lizards.

I've never met anyone quite like you before. . .

Well, thanks for dinner!

Yeah that got old, if you hadn't noticed, there's a lot more dialogue than before. It's a lot more interesting though. Sometimes.


"I just shit my pants, and since we don't have internet to post about it on, I'm running into the middle of the town to tell everyone about it."

A horde of monsters appeared in the cave to Sundletan! What's worse, they managed to lock the door to the exit and have the key hidden away!

Oh shit, what should we do? I guess I should go get that key! This is not a fetch quest, because the key is in the fucking cave with the door. That's the thing about this game, you find keys near the lock door, as in like in the same cave, you don't have to travel to a different cave first. Also note that the monsters are smart enough in this game to build a door with a lock on it out of nothing, with a key, and hide it. Weird game, I wonder if they address this?


Oh shit, they'll chew through your old wool clothes! Anyway, this is the part in Lufia II when I level Maxim up to level 5. In RPGs that start you on level 1, getting to level 5 right away makes things way easier. Here are the highlites:


A lizard dropped a charred newt, which makes more sense than grilled newt, since, you know, I don't think many lizards have backyard BBQ's. Oh hey, did I mention you can actually check what items do in this game?!


Amazing. Resotres around 10hp AND mp. Great for the Ancient Cave.


Also, when enemies are too weak to actually damage you, instead of doing 0, they miss. This also happens if you are too weak to hurt an enemy, which rarely happens except for some weapons miss undead enemies or whatever.


And I bought Strong, which will help me not die to whatever little weak enemies are in this cave.


Yeah, I forgot to screencap the enterance, okay?! Anyway, this isn't a very exciting cave.



But you know, she seemed different from other women, like I shouldn't stop her, you know?

I think he's high.


Yeah, in this game, locked doors look locked, how novel.


Also note that there are tons of walk-thru wall secret passages, kinda like in FF3-6. But there's no way of knowing these are here, unless you're like me and remember where most of them are.


Hmm, when you open chests it plays a jingle as you hold the item over your head. . . nope, not Zelda at all. Actually you do that in a lot of games.


Hmm I'll need a whip or something to get across this. . . which I won't be getting for a while, so I'll ignore it for now. DON'T LET ME FORGET ABOUT THIS kay.


Aw I need to get up there to be able to hit this switch that look suspiciously like a switch in a Zelda game.


I must dispatch these monsters to get down this. . . hey mushrooms!


Where's a badger when you need one?


BATS! They sometimes run when at low health. Only certain enemies do that, there's a stat "guts" which influences whether or not an enemy will run when low on health (this also affects certain friendly monsters who join your party)


Unlike the power potions in the first game. . .


This one increases my strength. Like it should!


Yeah, this looks cooler than "Maxim's STR up 1 pt"


Accurately named.


I can cross this bridge! I, being the tard I am, forgot that across that bridge is a secret passage to new armor, so I missed it and will return for it when I book the game up again. Yeah, I totally remember all the hidden passages


SPIDERS?!?! I WISH I HAD A FIRE SPELL ARGH!


Note that poison ACTUALLY DOES SOMETHING in this game!


Healing panals and. . . what's that?!?! A SAVE POINT! I can SAVE IN DUNGEONS IN THIS GAME! How amazingly useful!


Oh shit this lizard can TALK!



This is a simple battle of attack every turn and healing when needed, like most first bosses in RPG's.


I wish I had remembered that armor! Oh well, he died shortly after.


Yay.


Gets lol


Wow, they ACTUALLY addressed this?! I'm amazed.

Besides, why would he even do it? Lizard men gain nothing disrupting the lives of humans! This has never happened before!


A mysterious green haired woman. She's a magic prophet type person, the game's resident magical witch like character, so she'll be

Who are you? And why do you know my name?

I can see the future. I know your name and why you came here.

Well you could've asked anyone for that. Who are you?

It doesn't matter. Don't you want to know why monsters are smarter and attacking humans?

Do you know why?

Are you aware of the Red Ball of light that appeared a couple nights ago?

Some little kid mentioned it but I thought he was just being imaginative.

Everything that has happened is because of that light.

Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. How could a freaking ball of light do something like this?

It's incredible, but it's true. Time has begun to change. Now a small wave, soon a huge swell of an attack on humanity. And you, Maxim, have the power to fight this swelling.

What am I going to drain it or something? I don't have that kind of power, and besides, is this ball a human or a monster or what?

It's not just you, but others will help you along the way. You're all destined to go on a journey.

You're not helping, you're just making me more confused.

Whether or not you actually go is up to you, I'm just informing you of your destiny.


She's purdy

My name is Iris. I am here to ascertain your future. If you go, we will meet again.

Okay well let's go through that door, my journey is just beginning! I have nothing better to do, anyway.


Here's the door, now opened, how convenient!


Here's Sundletan, but I had a request to take a video of the next part, so here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17C1tB_M6UU / Backup

What is causing this? Find out next update!

EDIT: fixed the images, my bad.